Tag Archives: open letter

EDITOR’S NOTE: We end each year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in. Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2016 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.

While I don’t think this was my finest writing by any means, I do think it’s one of the more important posts I wrote this year. And not just because I want my good name vindicated by future historians or alien archaeologists sifting through the ashy remains of the Western hemisphere.

In the face of a lot of folks trying to come to terms with the election of Donald Trump, I make the argument that they just don’t have to.

In spite of my own frustration and anger at the results of the election, I nevertheless want to state for the record that voting-for-a-lesser-evil is not now, nor ever will be, the answer. In spite of what Mrs. Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders believe, democracy cannot be saved by us choosing not to practice it. Continue reading →

Okay, so Jennifer Lawrence. Kat and I actually discussed her in one of our first Culture War Correspondences ever, back when the actress [or actor, I haven’t decided how I feel about the term being gender neutral] and the positive attention she was garnering online was creating an equal if not greater amount of backlash. However these days people aren’t talking about how much she loves food or her general sense of coordination when walking up to receive an Oscar.

Kat’s most recent post delves into the perception of the leaked nude photos of Lawrence, falling firmly on the side [the same one I do] that the people who should really be blamed are the ones who invaded her and many others’ personal privacy. To once again quote the same two sentences from her Vanity Fairinterview that so many have been latching onto, and rightly so, “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime.”

Here’s that cover again.

I could have easily left it at that, except that her interview with Vanity Fair went just a little bit further. Lawrence explained that she had no reason to make any apologies to anyone, which I continue to agree with, but justified
the action of taking the pictures in the first place she said:

“I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

I don’t own a smart phone, and as a result I do not have Candy Crush Saga. I own a dinky little Samsung slider phone which is complete with six game demos, from WPT Hold ‘Em 2 to The Sims 2. My all-time favourite is Block Breaker 2, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve broken those blocks on the only available level over and over and over again. I’m easy to please, is what I’m saying. Also that I’m not in the target demographic here.

Many of my friends are, though; their enthusiasm for this confectionery-based game has seemingly no bounds. I get it, too- puzzle games are fun. Puzzle games that feature the too-sweet treats that you ideally want in your mouth doubly so. I don’t personally have anything against smart phone games candy-based or otherwise, what I have a problem with is greed and theft.